Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Non-Russian Republics have Best Demographic Trends; Russian Subjects the Worst, New Survey Finds

Paul
Goble

Staunton, February 16 – A new survey
prepared by the Sober Russia Project and the analytic staff of the Russian
Social Chamber finds that non-Russian republics make up nine of the ten best
places in Russia in terms of demographic success while Russian oblasts form nine
of the bottom ten.

These overall patterns as reported
by the survey were echoed in each of its component parts:

·Nine
of the ten subjects with the highest birthrates were non-Russian republics,
while nine of the ten with the lowest birthrates were Russian oblasts.

·Nine
of the ten subjects with the highest number of births relative to deaths were
non-Russian republics, while all ten at the bottom of that scale were
predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts.

·All
four regions where the average number of children was three were non-Russian
republics, while those with only one child mostly consisted of predominantly
ethnic Russian oblasts.

·The
three subjects with the lowest number of abortions per live births – between 12
and 13 – were all non-Russian republics; those with the highest number were
Russian areas, with the nominal exception of the Jewish AO which is
predominantly Russian as well, where the figures ranged from 74 per 100 live
births in Pskov to 97 in Magadan.

·The
level of alcohol, drugs and tobacco threats had the least importance in
Ingushetia and the most in Sakhalin. The well-being of the population was
highest in St. Petersburg and lowest in Chechnya. And a healthy way of life was
found most often in Belgorod and least in Ingushetia. Infant mortality was
lowest in Chuvashia and highest in Chukotka.

What this pattern means, although neither Izvestiya
nor Nazaccent pointed it out, is that the non-Russian nationalities continue to
grow more rapidly than does the Russian nation, something that can be shown
only in this indirect way because the Putin regime has cut back in the amount
of ethnically-arrayed demographic data that it allows to be published.